Whittaker Updates On Health After Surgery

In his first video comments since pulling out of UFC 234 with a freak hernia, UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker told his fans that it may be a while until he returns to the Octagon.

“I’m in good spirits,” Whittaker said on his YouTube channel. “I’m thankful that I still have my health and that they found it before I fought and I can walk away from this and fight at a later date. My whole thing is I want to heal, train, and then fight. My health comes first. I need to make sure I’m healthy and then I’ll fight anyone, anywhere.”

Also in the video, Whittaker addressed his would have been opponent for UFC 234, Kelvin Gastelum declaring himself as the “real” middleweight champion.

“I thought it was cute,” Whittaker said. “You know when your kid finds your work belt at home and then he starts wearing it around the house? That’s kind of how I saw the whole thing. It was adorable.

“I feel bad for him that he trained and made the trip out here and then I couldn’t give it to him. I apologize for that but obviously my health comes first. It is what it is. . . His health was looking a bit shocking as well. It’s just one of those things. Maybe it was better for both of us.”

“With Anderson (Silva) and (Israel) Adesanya just fighting, I don’t know what that does,” Whittaker said of the makeup of the weight division after Silva and Israel Adesanya taking the UFC 234 main event. “I don’t know what the UFC is gonna make. I’ve never picked a fight. They just line them up and I beat them and that’s exactly what I’ve done. I’ve never tip-toed my way to the title. . .

“I’m not worried. I don’t know what the UFC want to do with Gastelum and Adesanya now because obviously, I’ve heard a lot of things. How the UFC wants to go about lining up either Gastelum still or Adesanya or getting them to fight someone before, I think it certainly spices up the division. [Yoel] Romero and [Paulo] Costa have been calling out Adesanya. I know that there’s lifeblood in the division.”